


paper amnesia

by orphan_account



Category: Death Note, Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-12-08
Updated: 2005-12-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 14:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4525716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	1. Chapter 1

  
**part i**  
  
  
The call came at noon.  
  
When it came, Kirihara was lying belly-down on the sofa, reading a hardcover edition of Musashi. I was sipping espresso on the couch. My feet rested on the coffee table.   
  
Yanagi stood up when the phone rang. He folded up today's Asahi Shimbun and placed it on the glass table, next to Kirihara's neglected jasmine tea. Kirihara didn't move except to turn the page, and while I took a drawn-out drag of coffee, Yanagi picked up the receiver.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Kirihara glanced up at Yanagi and then turned on his side to face me, as if the unexpected halt of the ringtone had drawn his attention back to the living world. "That's not very gentlemanly of you, making a guest answer the phone."  
  
I put down my coffee cup, reached for a pack of cigarettes. "I like my guests to feel at home."  
  
"...This is Yanagi Renji speaking. Hiroshi is here, if you'd like to speak to him. Yes."  
  
"Thanks, but I feel at home whenever my risk of getting lung cancer falls below the national average."  
  
"...I see. Is everything all right? No trouble? Yes, yes. I see."  
  
"Call it a hazard of family life." Father has smoked a pack a day - more, on days when he's not working - since before I can remember. Cardiac failure will get him one day, if the carcinogens don't.  
  
"Humph." Kirihara gave me a dissatisfied look, before going back to his reading. I searched for the lighter closest to hand - Yanagi's - and flicked it on.   
  
Kirihara is a strange child. He exudes postmodernity while being attracted to older things. He is filled with dichotomies, improbability, contradiction. I would ask him why he follows us, if he hadn't been doing so forever.  
  
"...certainly. What time would be best? We'll see you there, then."  
  
I lit up the cigarette and breathed nicotine, looking curiously at Yanagi as he hung up.  
  
"That was Seiichi's parents," Yanagi said. "He was admitted to hospital last night."  
  
“What happened?” I asked.   
  
“Again?” Kirihara stared at Yanagi. Kirihara is better at reading Yanagi's expressions than I am.   
  
I swore under my breath, mainly to break the silence. The other two were deathly still, not looking at anything. Yanagi – well, it's hard to tell where Yanagi is looking even when he's staring right at you, but Kirihara's gaze definitely went vacant for a split second. Then his eyes narrowed.   
  
Hard to tell whether he's out of control or simply determined, at times like these. He put down his book and reached for his jumper, which was lying across the armrest.   
  
“Where are you going?” Yanagi held up a hand as if to stop him.  
  
“To see buchou.” He didn't slam the door behind him, but it made a fairly severe thud as it closed.  
  
I wondered aloud whether Kirihara was going to visit Sanada for his own sake, or for Sanada's.  
  
“For Genichirou's, most likely,” said Yanagi. “I cannot imagine Akaya deriving any comfort from Genichirou's reaction.”   
  
“We should visit him soon.” I hate hospitals, but Yukimura was Yanagi's friend. “Tonight?”   
  
“Perhaps tomorrow. I think -- I need some time. To think.”   
  
And Yanagi was my closest friend despite the fact that I was not his. I took another breath of cigarette. “Would you like to stay over tonight? There's no class in the morning.”  
  
He probably wanted to be alone, but we both knew that it was unhealthy for him.   
  
“I would,” he said, attempting a ghost of a smile – and a ghost of a Yanagi-smile isn't much by any standard. “Thank you.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**part ii**  
  
There is only one specialist oncology centre in Kanagawa. Yanagi and I passed through the revolving door at the front entrance and saw Kirihara chatting to the receptionist. He was accompanied by Sanada Genichirou.  
  
All well and good, I thought. Sanada and I have very little to say to each other. Back in junior high, he thought I would make a valuable addition to the kendo club. I had no interest in kendo. As it turned out, Kirihara is better at it than I could ever be. Whenever I meet Sanada we stumble through conversations with the awkwardness of acquaintances who have nothing in common.   
  
Yanagi made small talk with Sanada as we made our way to the haematology ward. Yanagi is good at small talk. Kirihara did not seem interested in communicating with anyone, so I resorted to scrutinising our surroundings. It was a very attractive hospital, with rice paper paintings hanging on the walls of the corridors.   
  
The ward clerk directed us to a room tucked away in a corner. The room was filled with a profusion of flowers and helium balloons, a tribute to Yukimura's popularity. Marui Bunta and Niou Masaharu were inside. Marui sat at the bedside, popping gum. Niou was standing. He looked up as I passed through the doorway. For a moment, we made eye contact.  
  
Sanada paused in the doorway as the others came in; he was the outsider, even among such a random assortment of people as we were. A commerce major with enough kendo trophies to line the Great Wall of China doesn't have much reason to come into contact with three humanities students (Kirihara aside), a music prodigy and a three-time student body president. I looked at Niou, who greeted the others with a nod. Completely self-possessed as usual. His silver hair was spiked at all the right angles. No wonder the girls voted for him.   
  
Of course, Yukimura being on his ticket had something to do with it.   
  
I eventually focused on Yukimura; we all did. He looked pale and thin – but Yukimura always looked pale and thin. All those hours of toiling in the garden never seemed to make a difference to his complexion. An intravenous line was running red blood cells into his arm from a bag suspended on a metal stand.   
  
He smiled. “Renji. I knew you'd come.”   
  
But his gaze barely stayed on Yanagi's face and soon drifted to Sanada. Not for the first time, I regretted attending an escalator school –  _everyone_  had history with each other. Marui at least had gotten a reprieve when he went to Europe for three years, but I didn't understand why he was back in Japan and not at Juilliard.   
  
He'd been back for a year, and the Trio were ruling the campus again, just like they had in high school and junior high.   
  
“We'll just go get some coffee. Are you coming, Bunta?” I could feel Niou watching me as he spoke. Niou and I have history, much in the same way that Sanada and Yukimura have history. We don't talk to each other these days because we hate small talk.   
  
Marui made a wet chewy noise with his gum. “Oh yeah. Sure.” He sniffed as he walked past us. “You've been smoking again, Renji. It'll wreck your voice.”  
  
Marui is the only non-smoker I know who can tell cigarette brands apart by the smell of the smoker's breath. He'd heard Yanagi sing once, back in our freshman undergraduate year, and he'd been pushing for him to participate in the choir ever since.   
  
The two of them left, and suddenly there was space to breathe again. Niou had been right to make an exit, it was too damn awkward with seven people in the room. The last time we'd all been together like this was at Jackal Kuwahara's funeral.   
  
Kirihara had already gone to Yukimura's side. “Are you feeling all right?”   
  
“Mainly tired.” Gentle voice, the voice that could sway half the student population of Rikkai. “The doctors said I was anaemic.”  
  
“What's the prognosis?” asked Yanagi.  
  
He paused several seconds before he spoke, and we all heard the answer in that pause. “They're going to try chemotherapy.”   
  
I tried to think of something to say, and while I was thinking, Sanada stepped forward. He frowned down at Yukimura. “Keep fighting.”  
  
There was something quite fierce in Yukimura's expression. “I will.”


	3. Chapter 3

  
**part iii**  
The maple tree outside Yanagi's favourite coffee house was shedding leaves. I watched them drift downwards, red, gold, carried by the slow wind. There was just enough of a breeze to be chilly. I would have preferred to sit inside, but Yanagi was absorbed in reading the university magazine.   
  
“Anything interesting?” I asked. Yanagi was holding the glossy magazine so that it was propped against the edge of the table; from my position I could only see the edges of its cover art, which appeared to be an oil painting in intense primary colours. It looked like Yukimura's work.   
  
Yanagi lay the magazine flat on the table. Not being good at reading upside-down, I could just barely, if I squinted, make out the headlines in the news section. The most prominent one said:  _Student wins international music competition_. “A few articles. Bunta won another award. A jazz one. And there's a feature on Seiichi's latest exhibition.”  
  
“The one that just finished? I didn't make it to that one.” I like Yukimura's paintings, but I don't go out of my way to look for them.   
  
“No; the two of you don't get along well, do you?” Yanagi gave me a curious glance. “I've been told you were childhood friends.”  
  
I shrugged, fingers idly pushing a cup of espresso around its saucer. “His parents and mine went to school together. We haven't been close for years. Not since junior high.”   
  
All things that Yanagi knew already. He was constantly inquisitive, but rarely meddlesome. “Ah well, it's common for friendships to change over time. Especially childhood ones.” He turned the page. A panel in the upper left-hand corner (Yanagi's left, my right) caught my attention.   
  
“Is that an obituary?” I asked.  
  
Yanagi scrutinised the page. “Yes. Hijikawa Ken, the Professor of Applied Mathematics. He died of a heart attack three weeks ago.”   
  
“The one who was a total and unmitigated arsehole?”  
  
“Quite a few students called him that, yes. Although the magazine editors have chosen to focus on his contributions to research and 'the teaching of a generation of students.'”  
  
“None of whom were particularly grateful, I bet.” A waitress arrived, carrying our sandwiches. Yanagi knew her, and smiled politely. “Have they found a replacement yet?”  
  
“Not that I know of.” Yanagi's eyes suddenly flickered sideways, in distraction. I turned and saw Marui strolling towards us. His usual air of nonchalance seemed a tad exaggerated to me – the chewing motions of his mouth were too vigorous, his step a bit too springy.   
  
Yanagi must have thought so too. “I thought you would still be at the hospital,” he said, when Marui came to a stop at our table.  
  
“Seiichi's having a biopsy this morning. And I had class.” Marui laid his hands flat on the tabletop; his nails were painted the colour of his hairdye. Like Yukimura, he'd begun affecting long hair at university; the ubiquitous sight of their ponytails flanking Niou on either side had led the political competition to refer to them derisively as the drunken engineer and his artist women.   
  
Yanagi congratulated him on winning the jazz competition. Marui made a little dismissive gesture with his fingers. He had graceful calloused hands, the clipped fingernails of a violin player. “I was lucky. There was a pianist there who deserved it more. I think I should be the one congratulating you, though. Word has it that you've been published in quite a few journals lately.”   
  
Yanagi writes essays on history, very good ones, and short stories, not quite emotional enough to be compelling. “I have a long way to go before matching Akaya's record.”   
  
“Oh yeah, the kid writes poetry, right?” Marui snapped his fingers. “Actually, I've been wanting to set some of his poems to music for ages. I was going to ask him, the last time I saw him at that club, but then things got a little crazy--”  
  
“What happened?” asked Yanagi neutrally.   
  
Marui frowned. “Nothing. Just a bad night out, that's all. I'm going to get some coffee. See you soon.”   
  
We watched him saunter into the coffee house. “I hope Akaya isn't indulging in his wilder habits again,” said Yanagi.   
  
Again, I shrugged. “It's not Marui's job to tell us. Speaking of which, your achievements and Marui's make me feel quite unaccomplished.” Story of my life thus far.   
  
“You ought to start writing again. Non-fiction, at least, if poetry is too difficult these days. You're quite the avid diarist, aren't you?”   
  
“That's different.”   
  
“How so?” When I made no response, he persisted: “Or perhaps you could join the tennis club.”  
  
“Yanagi.” If he wanted a personal pet project, that was what we kept Kirihara around for.   
  
There is nothing I hate quite as much as being told what to do.   
  
He backed off, we continued sipping our tea and coffee, and I watched the maple leaves fall, thinking of Yukimura's thin, thin hands, the dark circles beneath his eyes.


End file.
